21 Cal.4th 737, S067443, People v. Frazer

• Citation: 21 Cal.4th 737, 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 312, 982 P.2d 180
• Opinion Judge: [8] The opinion of the court was delivered by: Baxter, J.
• Party Name: People v. Frazer
• Attorney: [7] Attorneys for Appellant: Daniel E. Lungren and Bill Lockyer, Attorneys General, George Williamson and David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, W. Scott Thorpe and Janet Gaard, Assistant Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Appellant...
• Case Date: August 30, 1999
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 737

21 Cal.4th 737

88 Cal.Rptr.2d 312, 982 P.2d 180

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

RAYMOND LAWRENCE FRAZER, Defendant and Respondent.

S067443.

Supreme Court of California

August 30, 1999

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COUNSEL

Daniel E. Lungren and Bill Lockyer, Attorneys General, George Williamson and David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Robert R. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, W. Scott Thorpe and Janet Gaard, Assistant Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

William T. Rigsby for Defendant and Respondent.

Charles M. Sevilla and John T. Philipsborn for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

Law Offices of Michael B. Dashjian and Michael B. Dashjian for California Appellate Defense Counsel as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

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OPINION

BAXTER, J.—

For many years, the Penal Code ¹ has contained statutes of limitation allowing prosecution of alleged child molesters within a fixed number of years after the crime was committed. (See, e.g., § 800.) Recently, the Legislature added section 803, subdivision (g) (section 803(g)), to the statutory scheme to permit prosecution of such crimes for an additional period—within one year of the time the victim reports an independently corroborated crime to law enforcement officials. By its own terms, the new one-year limitations period applies whether the crime occurred before or after section 803(g) became effective. The new law also applies without regard to whether the fixed statute of limitations for the crime has already expired, and had already expired, when section 803(g) took effect.

Pursuant to section 803(g), defendant was charged with violating section 288, prohibiting lewd conduct against children, within one year after the victim reported the crime to the police. The fixed limitations period in existence when the crime occurred had run before the complaint was filed, and before section 803(g) became effective.

Defendant demurred on grounds section 803(g) constituted an impermissible ex post facto law under the United States and California Constitutions, and unfairly deprived him of a statute of limitations defense under the due process clauses of the United States Constitution. No argument was made that a law increasing the time for filing charges can never target defendants who committed their crimes before the new longer statute of limitations was enacted. Rather, defendant challenged the postcrime statutory change only insofar as it affected individuals who, like him, were accused of crimes already time-barred under prior law. The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the case. The Court of Appeal affirmed. The People sought review of the judgment in this court.

For reasons we explain, defendant's challenge to section 803(g) cannot prevail under the formula prescribed in Collins v. Youngblood (1990) 497 U.S. 37 [110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30] (Collins) for determining when penal legislation triggers ex post facto protection. With respect to defendant's due process claim, there is no authority specifically authorizing statutes like section 803(g) in criminal cases. However, the United States Supreme Court has rejected analogous attempts to retain the benefit of an expired statute of limitations as a matter of substantive due process. The high court has also indicated that any procedural due process inquiries concerning the timing of a criminal indictment are inherently factual in nature. Based on

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these principles, section 803(g) is not unconstitutional per se. We will therefore reverse the judgment.

I. Statutory Background

California's criminal statutes of limitation were first enacted in 1851 and codified in 1872. The entire scheme, which currently appears in sections 799 through 805.5, was overhauled in 1984. (Stats. 1984, ch. 1270, §§ 1, 2, pp. 4335-4337.) At that time, the Legislature determined that piecemeal amendment over the years had produced a scheme that was confusing, inconsistent, and lacking in cohesive rationale. The 1984 revisions sought to balance the state's interest in barring stale claims against the need to pursue and punish criminal offenders, particularly in serious cases. (Recommendation Relating to Statutes of Limitation for Felonies (Jan. 1984) 17 Cal. Law Revision Com. Rep. (1984) pp. 307-313 (Statutes of Limitation); see generally, Uelmen, Making Sense out of the California Criminal Statute of Limitations (1983) 15 Pacific L.J. 35.)

There is no statute of limitations for murder, embezzlement of public funds, and certain other offenses punishable by life imprisonment. (§ 799.) Otherwise, felony cases, including those involving sex crimes against children, are generally governed by the limitation periods set forth in sections 800 and 801.

Basically, a felony prosecution must be "commenced" either three years (§ 801) or six years (§ 800) "after commission of the offense," depending upon the term of imprisonment statutorily available as punishment for the crime. ² Section 804 describes the circumstances under which prosecution is "commenced" to include the time at which a criminal complaint, indictment, or information "is filed." (Id., subds. (a) & (b).) Section 805 makes clear that the "maximum punishment prescribed by statute" determines the applicable limitations period, and also defines the quoted phrase. (Id., subd. (a).)

Exceptions to sections 800 and 801 are contained in section 803. According to subdivision (a), section 803 sets forth the exclusive circumstances under which such statutory periods may be "extended" or "tolled." As enacted in 1984, and continuing through the present time, section 803 suspends the running of the statutory period while another prosecution based

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on the same conduct is pending against the defendant in state court (id., subd. (b)), delays commencement of the statutory period for certain offenses involving fraud, theft, and breach of fiduciary duty until the crime is discovered (id., subd. (c)), and suspends, within certain limits, the running of the statutory period while defendant is absent from the state (id., subd. (d)). (See also id., subd. (e), added by Stats. 1985, ch. 357, § 1, p. 1509 [delaying start of statutory period until certain Water Code and Health and Safety Code violations are discovered].)

Beginning in the late 1980's, lawmakers across the country became increasingly aware that young victims often delay reporting sexual abuse because they are easily manipulated by offenders in positions of authority and trust, and because children have difficulty remembering the crime or facing the trauma it can cause. Hence, states which traditionally limited the time for prosecuting child molestation in a manner similar to sections 800 and 801 have started to substantially increase the time in which criminal charges can be filed after the assault occurred. ³ Although they operate in a variety of ways, these new statutes generally apply to crimes committed both before and after their enactment. The new longer statutes of limitation are based on the apparent premise that both past and future sex crimes against children would otherwise go largely unpunished.

The California Legislature took similar steps when it added subdivision (g) to section 803, effective January 1, 1994. (Stats. 1993, ch. 390, § 1 (the 1994 law).) As originally enacted, section 803(g) stated that where certain serious sex offenses were allegedly committed against a victim who was under age 18 at the time, and where the "limitation period specified in Section 800 or 801 has expired," a criminal complaint is nonetheless timely if it is filed "within one year of the date of a report to a law enforcement

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agency" by the victim about the crime. ⁴ Under the literal terms of the 1994 law, the victim could be "any age" at the time the report was made and the extended period in section 803(g) began to run. However, the 1994 statute required "independent evidence that clearly and convincingly corroborates the victim's allegation," and circumscribed the manner in which this standard could be met. (Former § 803(g) (2).)

Prosecutors promptly invoked the foregoing provisions to file child molestation charges based on the time at which the victim reported the crime, regardless of when the crime occurred or when the statute of limitations otherwise expired. Some lower courts found no statutory or constitutional bar to applying section 803(g) even where the limitations period set forth in section 800 or 801 had expired before January 1, 1994. ⁵

However, in opinions that were originally published in 1995 and 1996, several Courts of Appeal held that section 803(g), as first enacted, did not apply where prosecution of the crime was otherwise time-barred as of the statute's effective date. ⁶ This line of cases invoked the general rule disfavoring "retroactive" application of statutes in the absence of a clear

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contrary intent. ⁷ These decisions relied primarily on the absence of explicit language in the 1994 law stating that it "revived" the state's ability to prosecute defendants against whom the fixed statute of limitations had run before 1994. Some of these Court of Appeal decisions assumed a contrary interpretation would violate ex post facto principles. ⁸

Judicial reluctance to apply section 803(g) in older child molestation cases did not go unnoticed by the Legislature. Through an amendment that became operative January 1, 1997, the statute identified in greater detail the cases that could be prosecuted despite delayed reporting of the crime. (Stats. 1996, ch. 130, § 1 (the 1996 amendment or version).)

First, the 1996 version retained, without substantive change, all language that had...